rod [OE] In Old English rod meant ‘slender shoot growing on or cut from a tree’ but also ‘straight stick or bundle of twigs used to inflict punishment’, and phrases linked with it tend to evoke traditional, and severe, ideas of discipline. To rule with a rod of iron goes back to the Bible, to Psalms: ‘Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.’ The proverb spare the rod and spoil the child, meaning that if children are not physically punished when they do wrong their personal development will suffer, is found from Anglo-Saxon times. It too has a biblical origin, from Proverbs: ‘He that spareth his rod, hateth his son.’